tent under a defeat; and it was not in me to give up my efforts to bring about a better state of things in the Connexion. And hence a renewal of the unhappy strife.

It is natural to suppose that my enemies would now be anxious to get rid of me, and would watch for a suitable occasion to cast me out; and my ideas of duty were such, that it was impossible for me long to refrain from giving them the opportunity they desired. I did it as follows.

1. The early churches provided for their poor members. The Quakers, the Moravians, and the early Methodists did the same. This exercise of brotherly love is enjoined by Christ and His Apostles. I urged this duty on the church to which I belonged. I preached and published a sermon on the subject, and circulated a number of tracts on the same point, published by others.

2. The travelling preachers had a Fund, called the Beneficent Fund, for the support of superannuated preachers and preachers' widows. Some of the rules of this fund seemed to me to be anti-christian, and I labored to get them altered. I also recommended that there should be a fund for worn-out and needy local preachers.

3. Members of the churches mingled with drunkards, profligates, and infidels, in benefit societies, and many other associations. This seemed to me to be very objectionable, and plainly unscriptural, and I recommended that they should come out from such societies, and form associations for good objects among themselves.

4. Wesley had provided cheap books and pamphlets for his societies, and I urged the Conference to do the same for ours. I wrote letters to the Annual Committee, the representatives of the Connexion, showing that books published at eight or ten shillings a volume, could be supplied at one or one and sixpence. I reminded them of the fact that the Book-room had abundance of spare capital which might be profitably used in such a work, and I pointed out the advantages likely to result from the encouragement of thoughtful and studious habits among the people. I published a pamphlet on the subject, entitled The Church and the Press, showing that the churches might almost monopolize the supply of books, and become the teachers and the rulers of the nations. I said, "If the Church at large would do its

OPPOSING INFIDELITY.

duty, every dark place on earth might be visited, and the seeds of truth and righteousness sown in every part of the globe in a few years. With regard to our own Connexion I said, "Our Magazine and Book-room, which ought to be promoting the intellectual and religious improvement of the Connexion and the world, are doing just nothing at all, or next to nothing. The leading articles of the Magazine are among the dullest and most useless things ever printed. The Book-room, which has capital enough to publish thirty or forty new books a year, does not issue one.

An institu

tion which ought to be filling the Connexion and the country generally with the light and blessings of Christianity, and which is capable of being made a blessing to the world at large, is allowed to 'stand there all the day idle.'"

I then proposed, as a means of stimulating the Book Committee and the Editor of the Magazine to greater activity, that I and my friends should be allowed to publish a periodical, and to establish a Book-room, at our own expense. The proposal was not only rejected, but even treated as a capital offence.

5. I had labored hard against the infidel socialists, lecturing against them in almost all the large towns in the kingdom, and I was, to a great extent, the means of breaking up their societies. But my contests with those infidels made me more sensible of the necessity of abandoning all human additions to Christ's doctrine, and of having nothing to defend but the beautiful and beneficent principles of pure unadulterated Christianity. Hence I became still less of a sectarian in my belief, and more and more of a simple Christian, and I labored to promote a stricter conformity to the teachings of Christ among ministers and Christians generally.

6. I wrote against the waste of God's money by professing Christians in luxurious living and vain show, and exhorted the rich to employ their surplus wealth in doing good.

7. That it might not be said that I received pay from the church for doing one kind of work while I employed a portion of my time in doing others, I gave up my salary, and refused to receive anything from the circuit in which I was stationed, except what was given me as a freewill offering.

8. I withdrew from the preachers' benefit society, resolved, in case of sickness or old age, to trust for a supply of my wants to the providence of God.

9. I recommended the Connexion to pay off all the chapel debts, and prepare itself for more vigorous and extensive aggressions on the kingdom of darkness.

All these things increased the anxiety of my opponents to get me out of the ministry; but they would probably have failed to give them the power to accomplish their object, if I had gone no farther. But I believed it my duty to take another step.

10. It was the custom in the Body to which I belonged, to baptize children in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This form of words was understood by me to imply that infant baptism was commanded by God in Scripture. This, however, I doubted, and I declined to use the words when naming or baptizing children. I had no objection to name children, to pray for them, or even to sprinkle them; but I could not use an expression in a sense in which I did not think it strictly true. This emboldened enemies to attempt my expulsion without more ado, and this time they adopted measures calculated to ensure success. They issued circulars on the subject to the ministers and to the leading and influential laymen. They called secret meetings. They employed a variety of means which seemed to me and my friends to savor more of Popish tyranny than of Christian discipline. At length Conference came, and I was called to account. The charges against me were—

my

1. That I had denied the divine appointment of baptism, and refused to administer the ordinance.

2. That I had denied the divine appointment and present obligation of the Lord's supper.

3. That I had declared myself opposed to the beneficent fund.

4. That I had announced the formation of a book establishment, thereby engaging in worldly pursuits, contrary to rule, and by this means opposing the best interests of the Book-room.

None of those charges were true. 1. What I proposed to do with regard to the supply of books, was no more

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worldly business than preaching was, or selling the publications of the Connexion. The object was not profit, but extended usefulness. 2. I had not declared myself opposed to the Beneficent Fund, but had simply proposed the improvement of its rules, and the extension of its operations. 3. I had not denied either the divine appointment or present obligation of the Lord's supper. 4. Nor had I denied the divine appointment of baptism, but only declared my belief that water baptism, though a becoming rite under the Christian dispensation, was the baptism of John, and absolutely binding only under his intermediate dispensation.

The two latter charges were not pressed, and even the second was speedily given up, the one on baptism only remaining. This was pressed, and as my views on the subject were deemed intolerable, I was expelled.

There was a fearful display of bad feeling on the part of many of my opponents. And no little pressure was brought to bear on those who were opposed to extreme measures. It was a time of terrible trial to those who showed themselves my friends. The height to which the excitement against me rose can hardly be made intelligible to my readers of the present day. I regarded the proceedings of my opponents from beginning to end as dishonorable, unjust and cruel. "They have gone," said I, in my account of the proceedings of the Conference, "they have gone in opposition to every dictate both of equity and charity. The principles on which they have acted are the low, the dark, and the tyrannical principles of Popery. They have covered themselves with dishonor, and earned for themselves a name for injustice, intolerance and cruelty, beyond all the religious denominations in the land. Many a time, as I sat in my place in Conference, hearing what was said, and observing what was done, I asked myself, 'Is this like Christ? Can this be pleasing to God? What must angels think to look upon a scene like this? Perpetual talk about the authority of Conference and the majesty of the rules; but not a word about the authority of Christ, or the majesty and supremacy of the Gospel. And such overbearing, such harshness, such determined unrelenting cruelty towards all who showed a determination to act according to their own

convictions of duty.' In the evenings, after the sittings of Conference were adjourned, I and a friend frequently walked out among the hills surrounding the town, conversing with each other, and with our heavenly Father, and oh! what a contrast! What a boundless contrast between the atmosphere of Conference, and the atmosphere of those sweet hills! What an infinite relief to be placed beyond the sound of angry strife, and jealous, persecuting rage; to walk at large over the lofty hills, to breathe the fresh air of heaven, to converse with God, to look upon His wondrous works, to hear the sweet music of the birds, to trace the silent path of the shadowy woods, or to stand on the exposed, uncovered peaks of the mountain tops, and cast one's eyes on fruitful vales, and quiet homes, and all that earth can show of grand and beautiful, and most of all, to see in every sight the hand of God-to hear in every sound His voice,-to feel that the Great, Almighty, Unseen Spirit of the Universe, that lived and worked through all, was our Father and our love, to feel that we were one with Him, and that He was one with us. "This is heaven,' I cried; and, pointing to the scene of strife and hate that lurked below, I added, That is hell.' Never before did we understand why Jesus, after having spent the day in crowds, and being harassed with the captious, cruel, persecuting Scribes and Pharisees, retired at night into the desert, or withdrew to the mountains. Never before did the Gospel seem so true a story. Never before were we brought into such living sympathy with the Saviour of mankind. I can recollect nothing I ever met with so trying as to sit in Conference; but in our walks upon the high places, God made up for all." "Well," I added, "I thank God I am now free. My Conference trials are ended. O never more may I be found shut up with men who set at nought the authority of Christ, and who, by all the cruel arts of unrelenting persecution, strive to bend the immortal godlike mind into unnatural subjection to their ambitious will.”